Last voyage of the 2009 season?

As much as I hate to say it, today could have been my last sail on Jep for the season. As I look at my calendar, it's hard for me to imagine when I'll be able to get out again. Depressing.

Today is Steph's birthday, so we went for breakfast with her sister before an afternoon sail. Since Steph had to go to her parents for a bbq at 2:30, I offered to pick them up at McKinley Marina so they would have a car at close access. The boat launch at McKinley is a stones throw from the north gap of the breakers, so it worked out quite well.

Chad, Wendy, and her sister Patti helped me launch this morning. Once in the water, we motored through the Menomonee and Milwaukee Rivers to get out to the lake. The weather man was calling for an east wind but I quickly figured out it was more a northeast wind. We raised the jib and motor sailed over to McKinley to pick up Steph and her room mate Jess.

Once we had a full crew, we casted off from the fuel dock at McKinley and motored through the mooring "field". During this time, Chad lit a candle on a cupcake he and Wendy brought for Steph and we sang "happy birthday" as we approached the north gap. Happy Birthday babe!

Shortly after we exited the north gap, we raised the main and did some of that sailing, um, stuff. With a crew of 6 (including myself), we easily averaged around 5 knots. Six people on Jep isn't bad when you have a boat full of sailors, but with only Chad and I knowing what to do, we were both a little uneasy about tacking. I shifted people around the deck and had Chad man the soon-to-be active winch while Steph "broke" the sheet as we came about. Much to our surprise, we tacked quite well and headed back to McKinley. We probably got a couple miles off shore before we turned around.

On the trip back, we were on a close reach, so the boat started to heel about 15 degrees. I had very little weather helm. The boat felt great. With 4 on the rail and Chad and I in the cockpit, we clipped back around 5.5 knots.

When we got back to the fuel dock at McKinley, I lost all of my crew except Chad. Chad and I decided to sail jib only back to the river. Amazingly, with my working jib flying, we maintained about 3.3 knots. The sail was quite relaxing. We had cold leftover beer from the Buffett concert along with Kenny and Buffett filling the air. Not a bad way to end the afternoon.

We made one tack and I shot right up the mouth of the river. I finally had to use that noisy thing once we got close to Riverwalk Pizza as the wind gets pretty weird on the river. I also think it may be illegal to sail on the river. Not sure about that one.

Chad and I docked at the Ale House and got some chicken tenders and mott sticks. We ran into a group of dudes we met earlier in the summer when we partied all night at the Ale House and ended up sleeping on the boat. I'll get into that one in future posts. By about 5, both of us were pretty cashed so we decided to call it a day.

Hopefully I'll get one more sail this season, but if I have to end on this note, I'm happy.